244 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



anthesis, that is at the moment of tlie detachment of a sort of 

 conical roof or cap which covered it in the bud (fig. 300), we shall 

 see the male organs, of very variable form, rising up and spreading 

 to throw olT this operculum, under which they Jiad been bent up and 

 very closely imbricated. Following up their spiral from with- 

 out inwards, we find successively as follows : — the fertile stamens, 

 consisting of a filament that becomes more dilated and petaloid as 

 we iro further inwards, and an anther with two conti<^uous cells of 

 longitudinal dehiscence, placed on the inner face of a ribbon-like 

 connective, is prolonged into an apiculus above them ; sterile 

 stamens, or membranous petaloid blades, with the surfiice quite 

 glabrous, gradually increasing in size ; and finally, other staminodes 

 like thicker, fieshier scales, dotted over with projecting capitate glands, 

 much imbricated, and growing smaller as we approach the gynseceum. 

 These glands first appear on the inner face, on which they are always 

 more numerous than on the outer face and the crenulate edges. The 

 whole concavity of the receptacle is filled by the wedge-shaped ovaries,' 

 which are crowded together below, and free above, where they terminate 

 internally by a short stylar horn, stigmatiferous at the tip." In the 

 inner angle of each is a placenta bearing a variable number of ascend- 

 ing anatropous ovules in two parallel rows, their raphes a little towards 

 one another.^ The fruit is multiple, consisting of a large number of 

 many-seeded carpels crowded together within the top-shaped cavity 

 of the receptacle, now grown fieshy, whose rim enframes the styles and 

 projects a little above them ; the traces of these last are still found on 

 a sort of circular nearly horizontal platform, formed by the upper 

 surfaces of the individual fruits. The seed contains ruminate albumen 

 and a small embryo near its apex. As yet only two species of this 

 genus are known, Australian shrubs with alternate e.vstipulate leaves.* 



' They, Um>, uic Htrunged in a spirul whose nrcolas ns there are carpels." Now there is no 



turns arc close together. A little more than welding of the styles ; the free stiginus are ct]unl 



half way up the buck of each is an angular pro- in numlwr to the carjK'ls, and tlie areola- in 



jcction, a little hnuip which fits exactly into question certainly represent thone j><)rtion8of the 



the interval lietwecn two of the carjMiLs outside backs of the ovaries tliat are above the external 



of it. Tlie carpels thus nioiilikd on one another projections of which we have siniken. 



donot.howfvi-r, colare, but are only compressed ' Later on the ovules are displacetl, so that 



and crowiled together. one of them is as it were enfninied in a ring by 



= This tip is a sort of little papillose button, that the others. In IC. llmneKii, tlure are from 



has nothing in common witli what most authors three to m\ ovules in each row. 'Ibey have two 



have described as tlie stigma, for they say that coats, and the top of the si>cundine is tlask- 



" the styles are welded together into a mnsN, Kha|>e<l, and projects through the exostonie. 



terminiilfd by a flat stigmii jiitlrd by an many * \\v.s\\\., Fl. Autttiil., '\. WA. 



